Ayala Alabang requires prescription for condoms

MANILA, Philippines – Barangay Ayala Alabang in Muntinlupa City is now requiring people who buy condoms to present a doctor’s prescription.

In a barangay ordinance last January 3, village officials said condoms and other contraceptives cause abortions.

The ordinance also bars teachers, reproductive health advocates, and social workers from holding sex education activities in the barangay without prior consultation with parents of students.

Local officials also banned advertisement of all forms of contraceptives in the village.

Those who approved the ordinance were barangay chairman Alfred Xerez-Burgos, Jr.; kagawads Joanna Caluglug, Alice Bacani, Maria Carmen Reyes, Ma. Soledad Tugade, Mariano Manas Jr.,  Apolinario delos Santos III, Giancarlo Nazario; and Sangguniang Kabataan chairman Juan Enrico Parfan.

They said “contraceptive pills, hormonal contraceptives, and the IUD may kill children and injure the health of women who use them.”

Village officials also believe that contraceptives “undermine the solidarity of families by promoting premarital sex, giving rise to more fatherless children, more single mothers, more poverty, and more abortions.”

The resolution also claims that condoms are “unconstitutional” because “they promote and sanction immoral sexual congresses among the unmarried and especially among the young, thereby contradicting the Constitutional injunction that the State ‘shall promote and protect … the physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual and social well-being of the youth.”

Aside from asking people to present a prescription before they are allowed to buy condoms in Ayala Alabang, pharmacists are required by the ordinance to record the following data in a book for “abortives and anti-conceptionals”:

– Number and date of the prescription;

– Name and address of the physician;

– Name, quantity and manufacturer of the drug;

– Name and address of the purchaser;

– Date of filling the prescription; and

– Signature of the pharmacist filling the prescription.

Those who will violate the ordinance can be fined up to P500 or jailed for up to 4 months.

Village officials said foreigners who will violate the measure should also be deported.

Muntinlupa City officials have yet to comment on the ordinance. –Jojo Malig, abs-cbnNEWS.com